The Soldier
by PallasAthene13
Summary: Edilio Escobar is always seen as Sam's sidekick. The soldier who saved their lives so many times. The gravedigger. The town marshall. The kid who suddenly finds himself with more power than he wanted. A collection of oneshots looking into Edilio's mind.
1. Alone

**Disclaimer: I am not Michael Grant and I do not own the Gone series. But that would be cool.**

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_Edilio Escobar didn't get much time alone these days. _He was busy, talking, running, on the edge, ready to defend the kids. Before, he hated being alone anyway. Alone was dangerous. Alone he couldn't rely on anyone but himself. It was much easier to be on the edge of a crowd, surrounded but unnoticed, invisible but not blind. That was how he learned. That was how he lived.

Now, he preferred being alone. Not that he ever was. Alone, nobody was begging him for help, asking him to deal with everything. '_Edilio, another kid died and you have to dig a grave.' 'Edilio, we're being attacked and you have to fight back.' 'Edilio, Sam is going crazy and Astrid is useless and Albert is busy, and you have to take care of everything.'_

Alone, he didn't have to take out his gun and shoot someone. Some kid. Some animal. Some unnatural creation of the FAYZ. Alone, he could only rely on himself. In the new world, trust was the first thing that got you killed. As much as Edilio was sick of his new job, he wasn't ready to die.

It was worse, now. Now he was running the little society at Lake Tramonto while Sam sat around missing Astrid. Everyone relied on him now, not just for safety, but for a leader. Edilio Escobar was not a natural leader.

He wasn't the only one. Him, Dahra, Lana, Dekka, Sam. People who were looked up to in the FAYZ. The soldier, the nurse, the healer, the fighter, the leader. Alone, alone, alone, alone, alone. Lana had Sanjit, of course, but Edilio had seen the fear, the pain, the loneliness in her eyes. The Gaiaphage did that to people.

He'd been close enough to it once. It had rooted its way into his dying mind and still lingered there. Sam didn't know. Sam had enough to deal with.

Unlike the others, the Darkness had less of a hold when Edilio was alone. Alone, he was at peace with himself.

Edilio Escobar grabbed his gun before leaving the security of his room. He'd been alone long enough. He had a job to do.

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**I'm planning on doing a collection of quick one-shots about Edilio. Probably 5 or 6 chapters, maybe more. Reviews, please?**


	2. Death

**Disclaimer: I am not Michael Grant and do not own the Gone series. If I did, I would be spending less of my free time speculating about how _Light_ will end.**

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_Edilio Escobar was sick of death._ He knew every single kid who had died since the FAYZ. He knew their names, how old they where, how they died, who they left behind. He'd buried all of them.

They haunted his nightmares. All these kids he'd failed to save. All these kids he'd buried.

At first it was just the little girl who died in the fire. The fire where Edilio first discovered Sam's power. The fire where all of them stepped up, took leadership for the first time. Edilio buried the girl with the backhoe down the road because nobody else would.

Her unmarked grave was the beginning of Edilio's graveyard.

Gravedigger wasn't a profession Edilio- or anyone, for that matter- would have dreamed of before the FAYZ. It just happened. He buried that little girl out of respect, and it became his job.

It was incredibly ironic, actually. The town marshall, leader of the militia, the one who helped lead the battles that got everyone killed, was the same kid who buried the dead afterwards. A killer and a gravedigger.

Maybe it was the fact that he'd killed that made burying the kids so much worse. He hadn't killed often. But enough. He had to, really. He couldn't ask his soldiers to kill, and then refuse to himself.

The kids he'd killed haunted his nightmares as well.

Edilio hadn't been afraid of ghosts before the FAYZ. Now they terrified him. Because he saw them, every night.

He hoped the lives he saved, the kids he'd buried out of respect, would make up for the blood on his hands.


	3. Fear

**I am SO, SO sorry for abandoning this story/site. I lost my username and only just found it. In response to all the reviews: I **_**will **_**be doing an E/R oneshot, that'll probably be the last story in this fic.**

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_Edilio Escobar was afraid_. He was no stranger to fear. Fear for his family, his life, his future. Especially for his brother. He had no idea if Alvaro was alive or dead. If he knew where Edilio was. If anything outside this nightmare even existed.

Nightmare. That was a good word for his life right now. Nightmares when he slept, haunting him, torturing him. And nightmares during the day, struggling, surviving. His life was a nightmare. That in itself scared him.

He was afraid of normal things, too. Snakes. Death. Ghosts. Things every kid has nightmares about. Things that kept coming back to him, cropping up everywhere in the FAYZ. He was afraid of them.

But he was especially afraid of the Gaiaphage.

Imagine. This… _thing_, this epitome of evil, rooted inside your brain. Always there, always lurking… Edilio had come close to death that day. Very close, the Gaiaphage reminded him, so very close. Sometimes he wished he had died, that day outside of the cave.

Maybe then the Darkness would leave him alone.

But no. Edilio was afraid of death. He can't control death. He doesn't understand death. On the other hand, the Gaiaphage was something physical. Something he could block out, ignore. Something that was, at least partially, known to him.

At least, during those horrible, fear-filled nights, that was what Edilio told himself.

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**Next time will be a longer chapter. But I want to update my other two FanFics as well. So… reviews?**


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